MFA paedophile (1)

Joe Mifsud, the president of the Malta Football Association, has been enjoying the World Cup in Germany and by the time this letter is published will have arrived back in Malta. Perhaps he can now find the time to tackle the many questions about the MFA's competence with respect to the employment of a paedophile to work where children play football.

The MFA has so far denied it has done anything wrong and refused to answer questions from the press or from members of the public who have written in the newspapers. To add insult to injury it accused Joe Gerada of the child protection agency Appogg of courting cheap publicity when he went public with the matter after failing to quietly persuade the MFA to drop the convicted paedophile from working with children.

The MFA tried to appeal directly to the public by asking "in a long life, if someone is found guilty only once of corrupting a minor, should one be labelled a paedophile?". Now that Dr Mifsud is back in Malta I can tell him, as a psychiatrist, the answer is an unequivocal "yes". Research on this subject consistently shows that for every one conviction for child sexual abuse there are many other incidents of sexual abuse by the same offender which have remained undetected. It is gross incompetence to continue employing a convicted child sex offender to work with children.

Dr Mifsud might have salvaged his reputation by apologising, revising the MFA's policy on child protection and making sure he and the whole of the MFA board take compulsory lessons on child protection. So far we have had silence and a hope that critics will somehow forget and go away. Dr Mifsud cannot be trusted to keep children safe or to learn from mistakes. For the sake of our children, he must go now.